The students of Arnold Bremman’s International Arts Management class were provided with a special opportunity to learn about the commonality of arts managers worldwide when they were visited by Yvonne Owuor, the Executive Director of Zanzibar’s Festival of the Dhow Countries. Speaking with students on Saturday, November 12, 2005, Owuor told the students a little bit about Zanzibar, her background in arts management, and her experiences with the Festival.

     The festival of the Dhow countries is a ten day festival, running July 1-10, designed to look at and help define Zanzibari culture, and thus Swahili culture, through the arts. The festival is named after the dhow, a type pf trading boat that has run for centuries up and down the East Coast of Africa, and between China, the Arabian Peninsula, and India. The interaction created by these trade routes encouraged a unique historical and cultural development in the area. The festival embraces this uniqueness, and seeks to create a discourse on the culture.

     Evolving from the Zanzibar Film Festival, the Festival of the Dhow Countries now includes film, music, performing arts, and poetry as well. Although the festival concentrates on aspects of Zanzibari culture, it is truly an international event. Having been settled by the Portuguese, Chinese, Persians, Arabs, and British, Zanzibar itself is an international country. The festival attracts artists from throughout the world, with approximately 40% from East Africa, an equal amount from the rest of Africa, and the remaining from other parts of the world. The festival is built around themes – this year’s theme is monsoons and migrations and their influence on forging culture – and any artists whose work adds to the discourse are welcome to apply.

      It takes ten months to put each festival together, using a core staff of eight administrators, which grows to a staff of 125 by festival time. Interns from all over the world volunteer to help make each festival a success. While Owuor welcomes the international involvement, she acknowledges a need for more trained arts managers in Africa. “One of the main problems in East Africa is that we don’t have arts administrators,” she explains. This need has been recognized and efforts have begun to solve the problem. Both the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation have initiated programs to encourage East Africans to study arts management.

     Originally from Nairobi, Kenya, Owuor, herself, is very experienced in the international world of management. Having worked in various countries throughout Africa and in the UK, she experienced the computer industry, conservation, community development, and the film industry before coming to her present position as Executive Director of the Festival of the Dhow countries. She is also a writer, working on her first novel while attending a writing program in Iowa.

     As the Executive Director of the festival, Owuor oversees all of the administrators, show staff, and interns, while managing everything from booking artists, to securing festival sponsors, marketing the event, and making arrangements with local hotels and private families to house the festival artists and attendees. Centered in Stone Town, the capital of Zanzibar, the festival ultimately takes place all over the island. Owuor concedes that finding housing for festival attendees has proved challenging. “Last year there were 5,000 visitors. There are only 2,000 beds in Stone Town,” she explains. “It becomes the festival’s responsibility to arrange housing for the guests. Six months in advance, we book all of the available rooms and outside spaces and begin to make arrangements with homes to host visitors.”

     Although she is the first woman in her position at the festival, and Zanzibar is primarily a Muslim country, Owuor has not found this constricting. She does admit, however, that she found it challenging the year that a fatwah was declared on the festival for supposedly supporting homosexuality and watering down the culture of Zanzibar. After arranging a four hour concourse with all parties concerned, the festival was able to present its case on how it actually supports the culture of Zanzibar.

     “I have worked in other cultures around the world before and have learned to adapt to new cultural contexts,” Owuor explains. “You must realize what skills and abilities you bring to the situation and be confident, without trying to push an alternative agenda.” Owuor says she works within the constraints of the system, following the cultural contexts dictating the dress and behavior expected of women. At the same time, she utilizes the people and resources available to her. While there are many places that she, as a woman, cannot go, she trains board members to go in her stead. “I don’t have to prove myself here anymore than I would anywhere else… Festivals and organizations everywhere are about people. Board management training and building relationships with donors are key.”

     Traditionally a laid back culture, Owuor has watched the evolution of the religious temperament in Zanzibar with some concern. When Bin Laden bombed the embassies in Africa, Zanzibari Muslims protested against it. When the US invaded Iraq, anger towards the Americans started to come out and there is some resentment to the wide spread influence of US culture. While Owuor is not a fan of popular American culture, she feels that “culture and the arts speak to a universal need in people. Even if the culture comes from the US, if it can speak to others around the world where they feel they need to take it up, then it is saying something to those people and shouldn’t be resented.”

     Before parting, Owuor shared her inspirations with the class. “My main inspiration is that I’m excited about living, about being alive, and about what to do with that life. If I’m experiencing that whole life thing to the fullest, and it is fun, that is very important to me. If I’m not having fun, it’s time to move on. It is also important that my existence helps improve other’s lives. I hate feeling I’ve made others sad or miserable.”

     For more information on the Festival of the Dhow Countries, visit their website at <<www.ziff.or.tz>>.